Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 46 — page 133: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Space Travel and the Law by PETER SUMMERS A enterprises that involve many people and their property require, in the long run, special legislation to take care of the possibility of new circumstantial disputes. Space travel, man’s greatest enterprise, will benoexception. Already lawyers are giving thought to the problems that will arise when spaceships soar above the Earth and humans land on and colonise other planets. True, nothing concrete is being done about it yet, but we can be sure that when the time comes for Parliament to discuss space legislation quite a few lawyers will not approach the topic in complete ignorance. Of course, the biggest prob- lem is finding an answer to the question: Who owns space? Remember that space just goes on and on, and that if you look straight up—what- ever “‘straight’’ means—above your house there is no limit to the line of sight. Your two-dimensional ownership is clearly enough defined; it is that area of the Earth’s surface that is designated at the Land Registry as having become yours by virtue of a legal transaction; it has measurable boundaries. True, there are often disputes about the pre- cise placement of these boun- daries, but the boundaries are there somewhere. It is just a matter of finding them. This costs quite a lot of money and takes a fair amount of time, yet the legislation covering it is perfectly adequate. Your three dimensional ownership is also legally de- fined—it is virtually non- existent! Here we have an example of changing legisla- tion with changing conditions, a forerunner of what will have to be done when space travel becomes a reality. In ancient law a man who bought an area of land was deemed also to be the owner of all the space above that area; he was looked upon as the owner of a volume delineated by erecting imaginary planes upwards 132 comicloooks.comn